


One of Those Days

by parsnipit



Category: Sanders Sides, Thomas Sanders RPF, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: (a little bit), Alcohol, Angst, Blood, Fluff, M/M, Self-Loathing, Swearing, in which prince needs to learn better coping mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-13 00:45:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11173467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parsnipit/pseuds/parsnipit
Summary: Inspired by a Tumblr post: self care is getting drunk as hell, wandering into the woods and seducing a dragon.It’s one of those days—Prince can’t think of any good ideas, his daydreams are decidedly ominous, and everything he normally enjoys doing just seems boringboringboring. But, in spite of all that (or perhaps because of it) he’s still incredibly proficient at creating one thing—problems—and his boyfriends must be the ones to come to his rescue this time.





	One of Those Days

It’s one of those days—Prince can’t think of any good ideas, his daydreams are decidedly ominous, and everything he normally enjoys doing just seems boringboringboring. His thoughts, which are usually a rapid-fire jump from concept to concept, seem stilted and grind unpleasantly against each other. There’s also a distinct absence of demanding quests with which he could distract himself with, so his energy accumulates instead, and it sits stagnant and useless inside of him and it’s just so _frustrating._

But, in spite of all that (or perhaps because of it) he’s still incredibly proficient at creating one thing—problems.

He waits until all of the others have gone to bed before he cracks open his first beer. The pop-top snaps pleasantly at him as he pulls up on it, and it hisses out a blast of cold, carbonated air. The drink’s gone within twenty minutes. It’s not, he insists to himself, a problem. He’s not an alcoholic, not really. In fact, he seldom ever drinks—it fucks up his creative flow.

At times like this, however, when his creative flow is already fucked up, what harm can it do? In fact, it might even do some good. Lots of creators do things like this, and look where it gets them! Hemingway, Fitzgerald, van Gogh! If they can create when they’re drunk out of their minds, then why shouldn’t he be able to? He’s certainly not getting anything done sober.

And, for a little while, it actually seems to work. Warm and pleasantly buzzed, his ideas seem to break free from wherever they’ve been lodged in his brain, and one comes storming gloriously to the front of his mind: if he can’t find a quest, he’ll just have to create one, and better yet, a _unique_ one.

Sure, every other day or so he can go along and kill a dragon, save a royal, wear a crown—that stuff’s all well and good, but on days like today he really needs something original, something new, something he hasn’t ever done before. That, he decides (or rather, the alcohol decides, but at the moment the two seem one and the same) would be seducing a dragon.

Of course he can kill dragons! Who can’t? Anxiety and Logan and Patton, probably, but that’s besides the point. His boyfriends are his to protect, so they needn’t ever be around dragons in the first place. But what’s even awesomer than killing a dragon? _Seducing_ one! And then killing it, of course, because he would never want to copulate with an overgrown lizard, but again—not the point.

The point is that if he’s able to do that, the sheer newness of the experience will totally give him material for new ideas. He’ll be thinking up a storm for the next few weeks. Anxiety will be annoyed by the sudden influx of ideas, but really he’ll be impressed. (He usually is, but that’s his little secret to keep, Prince supposes.) Logan will be satisfied, because ideas allow him to start outlining videos, and Morality will just be damn happy that Prince feels good about what he’s doing.

So, really, what could _possibly_ be the downside?

(He may have had seven or eight beers by the time he decides this. He’s not sure. He lost track somewhere around 2:00 AM.)

He’s just so enthralled with his little plan that he _has_ to tell the others about it. Besides, they’ll worry if he isn’t home in the morning, and they’ll want to know where he went. He doesn’t expect his little quest to take that long, but it’s better safe than sorry. He loathes worrying the three of them—especially Anxiety, who takes worrying to a whole new level, honestly.

So he whips out his phone, taps out _self care is getting drunk as hell, wandering into the woods and seducing a dragon_ and leaves it at that. Logic, at least, will understand, and Morality likes it whenever somebody mentions self care. Maybe it’ll make him smile in the morning. One can always hope.

After strapping his sword sheathe, and its attendant sword, to his side, Prince slips quietly out of the house. Around him, the mindscape shifts and shivers, alluring in its limitless possibilities. He reaches out, wills it into shape—a dark forest, sprawling out in every direction, and filled to the brim with _dragons._

This is going to be fun.

* * *

Anxiety is, naturally, still awake at three in the morning. His eyelids are getting heavy, and he’s _considering_ going to sleep, but he also wants to watch more Netflix on his phone and Prince isn’t back yet. He can hear the low murmur of the TV in the living room, so his boyfriend’s probably just caught up in another one of his binge watches, but it feels strange to sleep with only two other bodies beside him.

He’s not going to drag Prince away from whatever fun he’s having just to appease his own dissatisfaction, though.

Shortly after he’s made that decision, however, he receives a text from Prince. _self care is getting drunk as hell, wandering into the woods and seducing a dragon._ What the fuck? Worry immediately rises to choke him, and he rolls over and prods Logic and Morality awake.

“Guys,” he says, flipping his phone around and unrepentantly ignoring their groans as the light hits their faces, “look at this.”

Logic squints at the screen, frowning, and Morality fumbles for their glasses.

“That is not good,” Logic says, already rolling out of bed and pulling on his shoes. “Come on. At what time did he send that?”

“Just a few minutes ago,” Anxiety says.

“But why would he want to seduce a dragon?” Morality asks, blearily rubbing sleep from his eyes. “I don’t get it.”

“He is drunk, Patton. What is there to get?” Logic says.

“He’s going to get himself killed if he tries to—to do _anything_ with a dragon like this, let alone seduce one,” Anxiety says, tying his shoelaces with shaky fingers. “That idiot. We knew he was feeling bad today, why didn’t we do something sooner, god—”

“Self-deprecating thoughts will do us no good right now. We need to focus on the problem currently at hand,” Logic says.

Morality nods once, the gravity of the situation suddenly settling in, if the lines on his face are anything to go by. “Okay. Okay, let’s hurry.”

The three of them burst out of the house and into a forest. Prince’s tracks are easy enough for Logic to follow, stumbled and pressed hard as they are into the leaf litter, so unlike their boyfriend’s usual graceful tread. When they find him he hasn’t—thank god—gotten very far from the house.

Unfortunately, he’s in a tree.

“Prince? What are you doing?” Logic asks, peering curiously through the tree branches as they come to stand beneath him.

“Logan.” Prince glances back down at the three of them, eyes feverishly bright. “Patton, Anxiety. Hi. Did you get my text?”

“Yeah, you could say that. Do you realize how ridiculous you’re being or are you actually this drunk?” Anxiety asks, scowling.

Morality sets a hand on Anxiety’s arm and he subsides. “Roman, honey, can you come down, please?” Morality asks.

“Yeah, in a sec. I’ve just gotta grab—” Prince pauses, lunges forward in a crash of snapping branches and fluttering leaves, and snatches at something on the tree branch opposite him. He must catch it, because he whoops victoriously, holding whatever the fuck it is close to his face. “—this dragon!”

Anxiety and Logic trade a baffled glance. “Is he serious?” Logic asks, under his breath.

“I don’t know,” Anxiety says. “How many drinks have you had, Princey?”

“A couple. But look at _this.”_ Prince holds his “dragon” up for them to see. It writhes in his hand, baring tiny needle-point teeth and hissing.

“Roman, that’s a lizard,” Logic says.

“No it’s not. I created this forest, and I created it with _dragons,_ not lizards.”

“Does it have wings?”

Prince frowns. “No, but—”

“Does it have horns?”

“No—”

“Does—”

The lizard suddenly opens its jaws, snarls, and spits a sputtering streamer of flame back towards Prince, who yelps and flinches away—but doesn’t release it. Of course not. Because that would make too much sense.

“It breathes fire,” Logic says. “Huh.”

“Ha! I was right. It _is_ a dragon. Although it seems rather primitive, so seducing it might be an issue.” Prince frowns at the tiny dragon, his face _far_ too close to it for Anxiety’s comfort. What if it bites him? Or breathes fire again? Prince will be hurt, and that’s—that’s unthinkable.

“Can you just come down here already? You’re going to fall or something,” Anxiety says.

“Fear not,” Prince says, straightening his shoulders, “for I am an _excellent_ climber. Watch this.”

Prince springs out of the tree and a panicked cry escapes Anxiety’s throat before he can stop it. The three of them rush forward as Prince lands on the ground in a crouch, his boots thudding noisily in the leaves. Relief swells in each of their chests as he straightens up and brushes himself off, grinning at them.

“See? Perfectly fine.”

Then the dragon twists violently, squirming out of Prince’s closed fist to land on the ground and scurry into the shadows. Prince lunges after it, but only succeeds in ramming his head and shoulders into a thatch of blackberry brambles. He reels back, sputtering angrily, bleeding from several tiny scratches on his hands and face.

The sight of his blood rackets Anxiety’s heart up another notch, and he wants nothing more than to drag the four of them all back to the house, and see to Prince’s injuries, and never ever go anywhere again. Before he has a chance to do any of that, though, Prince drops to his knees, laces his fingers into his hair, and yanks.

“Oh, no, no, no,” Morality says, jumping forward and kneeling in front of Prince. He rests his hands on the backs of Prince’s. When Prince doesn’t immediately flinch away, Morality untangles his fingers from his hair and pulls them away, trapping Prince’s hands between his. “Sweetheart, hey. Look at me.”

Prince looks up, furious tears gleaming in his eyes, as Anxiety and Logic come to sit next to Morality. “What?” he says, his voice choked and angry.

“What’s the matter?” Morality asks. “Come on, talk to us.”

Prince hunches his shoulders, glares at the ground. “I can’t do anything right. I can’t think of any fucking ideas, I can’t daydream without getting distracted, and I can’t even go on a stupid quest without fucking something up. That dragon was like five inches long, and I _still lost it._ And because of me we won’t be able to outline a video tomorrow, and you’ll all be disappointed, and I’ve dragged you out here in the middle of the night so you’ll be tired in the morning, and I’m going to be hungover so I’ll be even more useless, and now my hands really _hurt_.”

Morality makes a sad, sympathetic sound and opens his arms. Prince collapses forward, dropping his head to rest against Morality’s chest and allowing himself to be hugged. Anxiety moves to sit beside him, looping a protective arm over his back, and Logic rests a gentle hand on his shoulder. Morality presses a kiss to the top of Prince’s head, takes a deep breath, and begins to speak.

“You had a bad day today, huh?” he says. “I’m sorry about that. Not being able to come up with ideas or daydreams or quests must be frustrating for you, but I promise it won’t last forever. Every creator has some difficult times, but this—drinking and running around in the middle of the night and putting yourself in danger—it’s not an acceptable way to deal with it, okay? Roman?”

Prince makes a muffled sound of agreement.

“And you will never, ever be useless. Even if you can’t do anything creative, even if you’re not hopeful, or your own dreams annoy you, we’ll _always_ need you. We’ll always _want_ you. Do you understand?”

Prince squirms unhappily. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“It makes sense to me,” Logic says. “Constant creativity is an exhausting thing, and not to be expected from anyone—even from one who embodies that very creativity. Rest is necessary, and we will never think poorly of you for resting when you need to. Even if you need to rest for years and years, we would never stop wanting you. Resting creativity is entirely different from dead creativity, which would be a much worse thing.”

“If you got hurt, or—or died, who knows where Thomas would end up,” Anxiety says. “I know none of us would be in a very good place after that, but I’m just not sure how he would survive. You’re so important to his personality, to what he does—so don’t ever think you’re not.”

Prince sighs heavily, huddling closer to Morality. “Maybe.”

That’s not nearly good enough for any of his boyfriends, but before Logic and Anxiety can speak again, Morality says, “Tomorrow we can come up with some better ways to help you when you’re feeling like that. But for right now, what do you say we head back to the house, clean you up, and go to sleep? We won’t get anything done if we’re all tired or one of your dragon-lizards decides to come chew on us.”

When Prince agrees, the four of them return to the house. Anxiety ushers Prince into the bathroom and pulls out their first-aid kit. Prince sits on the counter, swinging his legs, as Anxiety quietly cleans up his wounds. He wipes dirt off of Prince’s hands and face, cleans his cuts and rubs antibiotic ointment over them. Logic brings Prince a glass of water and an ibuprofen, which he reluctantly accepts.

After that, they urge him to change into his pajamas, and then they go to bed. Morality wraps Prince in his arms, Anxiety curls up against Prince’s back, and Logic sprawls out on top of him—“in case you get any stupid ideas in the middle of the night,” he insists.

“What if I need to piss?” Prince asks.

“Just push me off,” Logic says, already yawning and closing his eyes. “You’re the strongest one here.”

Prince thinks that that means very little when he has three people crushing him with both affection and body weight, but—for the moment, at least—he thinks that it also might be okay. Here, with his loves beside him in the warm safety of their bed, he thinks that it might be okay if he can’t create. Just for now, of course. Tomorrow will bring a host of new problems, but now—

Now, for a little while, he’s okay.


End file.
